The commercial availability of more efficient, reliable and cost effective computers has enabled businesses and individuals to rely ever increasingly upon the same, as well as on related peripheral devices, to meet their information and processing needs.
In recent years, the immeasurable gains in technology experienced by the computer and communications industries have enabled the growth of global communications networks (e.g., the Internet). As a result thereof, there has been exponential growth in businesses that provide information and execute transactions via the Internet, such business are commonly said to be engaged in “electronic commerce.”
One important sub-area of electronic commerce for both private and publicly-traded companies is investor relations. Global communications networks, such as the Internet, provide an infrastructure, or “backbone,” that facilitates communication channels between such companies and their intended constituencies (e.g., media entities, financial analysts, financial services entities, institutional funds, individual investors, banking entities, etc.). At present, the infrastructure of the Internet has been used for web-casts, conference calls, press releases, and, to a lesser extent, road shows, all in an attempt to meet their investor relations needs.
Unfortunately, the above-identified uses are commonly viewed as too infrequent, not timely or lacking the necessary detail to meet the information needs of a company's constituencies. This is the situation with both publicly-traded and privately-held companies. Because there is no system nor other technology that provides a means for a company to near-continuously communicate information to its constituencies, a need exists in the art for a means, via a global communications network, for facilitating or providing near-instantaneous communications channels between companies and their intended constituencies.
In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) is instituting a fair disclosure regulation. As in other countries, the SEC has significant and increasing concerns that information is being ineffectively communicated by publicly traded companies to select members of their constituencies. It is common for such communications to be performed on a one-on-one basis, causing the same to be inefficient, time-consuming and, worst, selective.
The lack of sophistication of conventional systems and technologies combined with their inherent inability to provide broad-reaching communications across all constituencies creates isolated pockets of informed investors that increase a company's exposure to risk of selective disclosure. Therefore, in addition to the broad need in the art for a means for an intelligent communications conduit through which any company can near-instantaneously communicate relevant information to its constituencies, there exists a further need for a communications conduit that provides: (i) a standardized data repository indexing and cross-referencing company information by each subject of significance to one or more constituencies, (ii) an automated interface for placing or updating information disclosures on the communications conduit, and (iii) a controller that monitors and analyzes one or more constituencies understanding and reaction to such new or updating information disclosures.